


Legacy

by Fourthera



Series: Lucio Week 2018 [6]
Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-09 02:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13472067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fourthera/pseuds/Fourthera
Summary: Day 6 of Lucio Week 2018 (like 5 days late oops). Prompt was "legacy."





	Legacy

_In the end_ , Lucio thinks, _there’s very little left of a man once he’s died._ His very bones ache because of this unholy plague and fire seems to burn in his veins and eyes. He rubs at said eyes blearily, but no matter how tired he feels he finds sleep too distant to reach. Julian finds him that way, staring at the goat painting though the click of the dining room door catches the Count’s attention.

            “Oh, Doctor, come to finally smother me with your thighs?” Lucio asks, but the joke falls flat, lacking his usual snark.

            “No,” Julian answers reflexively. He coughs and fiddles with his collar. “You should be resting.” Lucio waves a dismissive hand.

            “Can’t sleep,” is his only reply. Julian stands at the door, seemingly at a loss. Hesitantly, Julian takes a seat at the table while Lucio stares off into space. “What do you think is left when one has died?” Lucio asks him suddenly.

            “Memories, I suppose, that people keep of them.” Lucio scoffs.

            “A short-lived legacy,” Lucio says. “Eventually those memories will die and the stories told of them as well. There is nothing eternal.” Lucio slouches deeper into his chair. Julian’s brow furrows, but before he can ask what has the Count so disturbed, Lucio says, “I need you and Asra to find someone.”

 

            Nika coughs violently into her sleeve. Plague-wracked like the rest of the citizens dropped on the island, she can tell that her time is short. Though often for naught, she still tries to make the passings of the others easier, more comfortable. Here on the island, she can’t do more than that. There is no medicine, there is no aid, and with each day that passes she gets a little hungrier, a little sicker, and a little more tired. At first, she’d kept the pyre burning, carved the dead names into wood, but she’d grown too weak for it, now just another ailing patient.

She lies against the trunk of a tree, to tired to walk any farther to her bed down the way in an abandoned hut with some of the others. _Am I dying today?_ she wonders. _Is that why I’m can’t make it the rest of the way?_ At the very least, the view of Vesuvia from her spot is beautiful, bathed in orange light and violet shadows in the view of the setting sun. Unable to beat back the exhaustion, Nika closes her eyes and thinks, _At least I can see home from here_.

 

            Lucio is restless for the entire day, anxiously awaiting Julian and Asra’s return. “Lucio, you must _rest_ ,” Nadia stresses from her seat by the fire. “They will find her.” Lucio sinks into his chaise, but still fidgets apprehensively.

            “What if they don’t find her?” Lucio worries. His dark thoughts are unspoken, but they circle in his head: _what if she’s dead?_ Nadia huffs through her nose.

            “The two of them together can surely work out where she’s gone,” Nadia consoles. She grabs a folded quilt from the back of her chair and drapes it over Lucio. “I have faith in them. You should, too,” she adds. Lucio looks up at her and takes a deep breath. Nadia smiles, thinking that maybe now she can get him to actually _rest_ rather than fidget, but the door to his chambers opens and sours her hopes. Lucio sits up immediately, spying the small human-shaped bundle in Asra’s arms.

            “You found her?” he asks, almost disbelievingly. Julian nods and removes his leather gloves.

            “She is very weak, but she’s alive,” he says. “Asra, put her in the bed, please; I’d like to examine her more thoroughly.” Asra does as asked, settling her into Lucio’s bed gently. Julian presses a finger against the inside of her wrist and waits. “Very weak,” he tuts, “but thankfully still beating. She’s dehydrated and probably starving as well; there didn’t seem to be much of anything on that island.” Lucio takes the chair from his desk and places it at the bedside. He grimaces at how thin and pale she looks. If Julian hadn’t just confirmed that her heart still beat, Lucio would have thought she was dead. He clasps her free hand tightly and feels for himself the little warmth she radiates. Julian lifts up one of her eyelids and hisses.

            “The disease has progressed very far,” Julian says. “She may have less time than you do, Count. If we don’t start some kind of treatment...” Julian shakes his head and busies himself with examining her limbs. Lucio is washed simultaneously with regret and relief: regret that he didn’t send someone after her sooner and relief that, though he might be too late, she’s here now. He presses a kiss to the back of her hand, which twitches in his grasp. Slowly, her eyes open, revealing her dark eyes, but they are like bottomless holes in a sea of blood.


End file.
